Blowing in the Wind
by xoxcrescentmoonxox
Summary: Hermione's birthday wishes have a way of not coming true for a long time.


_for the incredibly awesome Uni!_

_happy birthday!_

* * *

"Happy birthday, darling." Mrs. Granger smiles at her daughter. "Make a wish."

Hermione focuses on the ten candles and closes her eyes, repeating to herself, _I wish I had a friend. Someone who likes me because I'm me. A friend. I wish I had a friend._ She blows as hard as she can, and when she finally opens her eyes, the flames are gone, the room is dark, and her parents are smiling; asking, "What'd you wish for, sweetheart?" "No, no, don't tell us; then it won't come true."

In earlier birthdays she'd wished for a pony, for smooth hair and normal teeth, for books, for all the knowledge in the world. None of those things ever came true, so now she hopes doubly, sending an extra prayer drifting into the sky with the few tendrils of candle-smoke.

_Just a friend._

_

* * *

_

Hermione is twelve and alone. She'd thought that maybe being in a school for people like her would make her fit in, but it just makes her feel more isolated, because she's nothing like these people here. Nothing at all.

Lavender and Parvati don't know it's her birthday, and probably wouldn't much care if they did. Neville wished her congratulations in the Great Hall this morning, but oh God, it's not the same. She wishes her parents were here—at least last year she had _someone_ to celebrate with. People who loved her, if nothing else. Now, Hermione wants to be anywhere but here at Hogwarts, sticking out like a sore thumb because she thought she knew enough to fit in.

No one notices that her hand is a little less eager during classes, and no one cares that she's absent at dinner that night.

And Hermione still wishes for a friend.

* * *

Hermione turns thirteen, and she turns thirteen _with_ friends. With two of them. And the rest of the castle, maybe they don't wish her happy birthday or even know about the event at all, but they care a little. They know who she is, as more than the first year who's too smart. They know her as part of Harry's trio, the girl who solved a riddle and saved the castle. And that's a comforting feeling.

Maybe Harry and Ron only give her a small card, handmade with plain black ink and written on the back of one of Ron's Potions assignments ("Honestly, Ron, a P?" "Thought it would give you something to correct when you got bored with the card."), but it's signed with love.

That means more than anything.

* * *

Fourteen is tension. That September nineteenth is filled with stupidbloody Ron and that stupidbloody rat that stupidbloody Crookshanks just _won't_ leave be. Maybe her cat is right, maybe Ron is right, but Hermione doesn't care, not that day. She just wishes that she and Ron could be friends again. Friends like they usually are.

Parvati and Lavender have finally figured out her birthdate, and they organize for a small, cutesy cupcake with one candle on the top in the common room that night. She blows out the candle, and this time, she doesn't wish for friends—no, by now Hermione has friends. Just not the one she really needs.

This year, Hermione wishes for Ron.

* * *

Hermione is fifteen and fragile, but her birthday is the best it's ever been, because for the first time, Harry and Ron make a real fuss over it. They conned Dean, Seamus, and Neville into giving up the boy's dormitory for the night and magicked up a few decorations; even persuaded Fred and George to get a heavily iced cake from the kitchens. The three stay up for hours, laughing and talking and basking in each other's company. Night must have clouded Hermione's vision, because Ron thoroughly enchants Hermione, the way he smiles at her and makes jokes that don't really mean anything and really aren't that funny - but they're meant to make her giggle, and she does.

Harry signs his card with love again, and gives her a lovely book on the Egyptian spellworker's invention of Inferi. But Ron signs his just _Ron_, and his only present is a bar of Honeyduke's chocolate, battered and with one corner peeled away, as if the buyer had almost decided that he'd rather have it for himself.

It's because Ron is so vivid that night that Hermione wishes for him again. Not because of anything else, she tells herself staunchly. It's only this night that's making him more special.

* * *

When Hermione turns sixteen, her world is spinning around her, so she, Harry, Ginny, and Ron try to make sense of the turmoil. They sit in the Gryffindor common room late late late, strips of wrapping paper from all three's gifts to her strewn around the couch, victims of haphazard unwrapping that Hermione's never done before this year: normally she peels each layer of wrap off carefully, trying her hardest not to tear anything. Now she wants it to tear; to rip like her heart rips each time she's reminded that the war is heightening and there's nothing she can do. They talk for so long, Hermione fingering the delicate bracelet that Ginny and Ron went in together on—although she's convinced it was mostly Ginny—that by the time Harry remembers it, her cake is cold and the icing congealed.

Ron insists it'll taste good anyway, and so Ginny, shrieking with the laughter that's so rare for her these days, ties a bandana of ribbon around Hermione's eyes while Ron and Harry light the candles. They set the cake in front of her, and Hermione blows them out for all her friends. To keep them safe in the explosion that's coming. Because surely, the wizarding world needs all the help it can get.

* * *

Seventeen, and she has no doubt that Ron is what she wants for this birthday. Just Ron, in all his red haired, laughing, slightly sulky glory. So naturally, he chooses that night to be as difficult as possible.

"It's just a present, Hermione," he tells her exasperatedly after she's spent a few seconds feeling at it, poking at the wrapping paper to determine what's underneath. Spots of color appear on her cheeks, and she sets it quickly on the bed beside Harry and Ginny's gifts, and her parents', which, for the first time since starting Hogwarts, have arrived before her actual birthday.

"Nice haul you've gotten this year," he says a couple seconds later, and it's her turn to stare at him incredulously.

"Thanks?" she replies slightly peevishly. If only he'd stop being such a prat for a few seconds, let them have a real conversation before everyone else comes in, she could invite him to Slughorn's ball, and, oh, she just _has _to do that now, because she knows she'll chicken out otherwise.

She's never hated Harry more than when he walks in that door with Neville, Parvati, Lavender, and Ginny behind him. And if the beginning hadn't been so miserable, standing awkwardly with Ron, she could have had so much fun that night, surrounded by her closest friends the night she finally came of age.

But instead, the night is spent on Ron. As if she hasn't spent enough of her thoughts on him recently. Even her smile seems forced, and she _knows _it shouldn't be, because the party is everything she'd imagined. Everything but one part.

Ginny lights the candles and shoves the cake into Ron's hands to present to her, and Hermione, frustrated and never going to waste her wish on him—not this most important, coming of age one—blows them out for everyone else in her position.

Her night gets infinitely better when Harry and Ginny laugh and swat at each other over the cutting of the cake.

"What, are we going to starve tonight?" Ron asks, the curst locket around his neck.

* * *

Hermione is eighteen and on the run. She can't blame Harry and Ron for forgetting her birthday, not really. There's far more important things.

Like Ron's bloody stomach.

"Dunno, are we?" she fires back, and stalks out of the tent to rustle around for a blackberry bush or something. After a few minutes of walking aimlessly back and forth through the woods, face hot and mouth quivering, Harry steps out of the tent and joins her.

"I didn't remember until now," he says softly, putting his arm around her shoulders in an uncharacteristic display of affection. "And Ron's never been so good with dates."

"It's not that," Hermione cries, burying her face in his shoulder. "It's more . . . he's just been so bloody horrible lately, and I hoped—I thought—I wanted today to be different."

Harry holds her as she cries, and Hermione wishes that he could be the one she loved.

"Happy birthday," he whispers into her snarled hair. "Hope it's better next year."

She does too.

* * *

When Hermione finally gets her wishes, it's not her birthday; not any special occasion, really.

It's a day of tears and horror and fighting and _death_, and the only bright spot was the moment of clarity when she kissed Ron—jumped him, really—and he kissed her right back. Every other instant is spent on curses and terror and spellwork, on running away from danger to danger, on hoping to Merlin that Harry comes out safe.

And he does. In a way, more than one of her wishes came true. Because Voldemort is truly gone. Forever. And even if so many horrible things have happened today, even if so many people are dead, so many people are still safe. There will be time to mourn them later; Merlin knows, there'll be days and weeks and months of heartache, but for now, they've won.

They're _won_.

And Harry is comforting Ginny, and Hermione can tell that Ginny, sobbing into his shoulder, is helping Harry in a way that she'll never understand. Sadness has brought people all across the battlefield together.

It brought Ron and Hermione together.

Hermione gets her wish, but in a way that reeks of sadness and loss, today she wishes it hadn't come true yet.

* * *

**This was incredibly fun to write, particularly as the years progressed. Which was your favorite? Least favorite? Needed work? If you took the time to read this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts :)**


End file.
